Read More

According to Volvo – now owned by Chinese auto giant Geely – the announcement represents one of the most significant moves by any car maker to embrace electrification.

“This announcement marks the end of the solely combustion engine-powered car,” said Hakan Samuelsson, Volvo’s chief executive. “Volvo Cars has stated that it plans to have sold a total of 1m electrified cars by 2025. When we said it we meant it. This is how we are going to do it.”

Volvo says the announcement ends the end of the solely combustion engine-powered car

Speaking in Stockholm at the company’s design studio Mr Samuelsson revealed that from 2019 every new model launched by Volvo will use an electric motor in one form or another including fully electric cars, plug-in hybrid cars and mild-hybrid cars.

“This is about the customer,” said Mr Samuelsson. “People increasingly demand electrified cars, and we want to respond to our customers’ current and future needs. You can now pick and choose whichever electrified Volvo you wish.”

The company announced it will launch five fully electric cars between 2019 and 2021, three of which will be Volvo models and two of which will be high-performance electrified cars from Polestar, Volvo Cars’ performance car arm.

Read More

These five cars will be supplemented by a range of petrol and diesel plug-in hybrid and mild-hybrid 48-volt options on all models meaning that in future there will be no Volvo cars running only on combustion engines.

Full details of these models will be announced at a later date.

The decision follows the recent announcement that Volvo is planning to turn Polestar into a new separately branded electrified global high-performance car company.

Volvo has already said it has a commitment to minimising its environmental impact and making the cities of the future cleaner and aims to have climate-neutral manufacturing operations by 2025.